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HISTORY OF THE SWEDES. Diet of Stockholm. [1544—
Designs of tlie
princes.
by a loan, obtaining that town as security ; unless it
was a mere pretext on the king’s side in order to
take the matter out of the management of his sons.
For we know that John also, who had formed
connections with Reval by giving shelter in Finland to
the pirates of this town, (the sea-thieves of Reval
as Gustavus calls them,) was negociating with the
grand-master to furnish a loan upon the security of
certain fortresses, and had made an engagement to
this effect without his father’s privity. The king
had observed, as he declared, that his son had
some clandestine matter on his mind, and made
him earnest representations on this subject. "
Seeing thou well knowest that Finland is not a separate
dominion from Sweden, but that both are counted as
members of one body, it becomes thee to undertake
nothing which concerns the whole kingdom, unless
he who is the true head of Sweden, with the estates
of the realm, be consulted thereupon; and it be
approved and confirmed by him and them, as thy
bounden duty points out, and Sweden’s law requires."
But John turned for counsel in this design, not to
his father, but to Eric. The latter informs his
brother, who was still busied with his embassy to
London, that he had given orders to his secretary
with Clas Christersou Horn to negotiate with the
grand-master for the delivery of the castles of
Son-nenburg and Padis for the sum of 50,000 dollars,
of which 10,000 were to be raised in Finland. " And
when the king our father hears that this matter
has had a happy issue," he adds, " and we hold
the keys of the castles, doubt not that he will lay
out the i*est for us, or it can be procured in some
other mode l." He pledges himself to further the
scheme according to the engagement he had made,
" even should it move the wrath of the king2."
Eric gave command for the immediate equipment
of ships in Finland, which drew forth a letter from
the old monarch, forbidding any obedience being
given in matters of importance to " what Eric or
our other children may order without our
knowledge and sanction 3." Thus we see the sons united
against the father in the very point which was to
enkindle a deadly enmity between them while he
was yet hardly cold in his grave.
For the rest, Eric was so possessed with the
hopes he had conceived from the assurances of his
brother, now returned from London, that he was
firmly resolved himself to lay his love at the feet of
Elizabeth, although the queen at length, with more
than ordinary frankness, addressed a considerate
letter to the old king, entreating him to dissuade
his son from proceeding. Eric at first declared
this to be a jest, and when the king quoted the
Latin words of the letter, " by which this business
is broken off meetly and discreetly," he was of
opinion that he had not rightly understood their
meaning. " Thou holdest to another notion,"
Gustavus writes to him, " as if the queen’s letter were
not rightly interpreted to us. It were much more
to our wish thou liadst spared us such fancies, and
not contemned us, thy father. Although we will
confess that we are not so deeply learned in the
Latin tongue as thou mayest be, yet have we those
in our service who understand it well." Q,ui amat
periculuin, peribit in illo, the king adds. " It
were good thou shouldest ponder the weal of thy
house, and of all the inhabitants of Sweden, and
shouldest consider the call which this people hath
confided to thee after our mortal end, so that thou
mayest store up in thy soul, like a worthy prince,
the honour and majesty which thy father-land hath
conferred upon thee V
In the beginning of April 15G0, the king
complains to his eldest daughter, that he felt
somewhat weak in his head and stomach ; yet more
from sorrow and apprehension, especially for his
children, than from any other cause5. On the
24th of April he was taken ill at his house of
Juleta in Suthermanland (Sudermania), of a choleric
fever or ague ; but his health improving after
some days, he made excursions in his galley during
the fine season, according to his wont, round the
islands of the Mselar. His son John, who had now
returned from England, he received with a glad
welcome (May 25) in Eskilstuna, inviting the prince,
with his brother Eric, to the diet convened at
Stockholm for the 16th of June. The writ of
convocation issued, the king said, " by reason that
we feel weak and old, and many difficult and
weighty matters remain to be settled ;’’ a letter to
Eric, in which he entreats his son not to give ear to
those who dissuaded him from coming to the king6;
and one to John, in which he complains that Eric
kept spies on his father’s motions 7; are, together
with his testament, the latest relics which the state
archives preserve of king Gustavus. Of his last
speech to the estates, and of his illness and death,
we have accounts from his secretary, Sucno Elotson,
and his confessor.
The writ enumerates free-born and freeholders
(fralsemen), clerks, burgesses, and peasants, these
forming the four estates. In relation to the
first-named class, it will be remembered, that although
horse-service, as it was called, or the furnishing of
a horseman, was, by law, one condition of the
immunity from taxation enjoyed by the nobility,
there was, nevertheless, before its institution, a
nobility of birth in the common sense, which equally
subsisted afterwards. The nobleman by birth was
the " free-born ;" the fralseman was he who had
won his privilege of nobility by service performed ;
both were reckoned as belonging to the class of
nobles. That for admission thereinto, distinguished
birth was not in general required, the words of
Gustavus himself establish. When Eric stated,
that in his dukedom several peasants’ sons had
come, by marriage, into the possession of tax-free
(or fralse) estates, the king replied, that "trial
1 To John, September 23, 1558. Register.
2 Eric to John, February 11, 1560. Register.
3 To Joachim Bulgrin, upon the ships which duke Eric
requests, without having acquainted the king; Juleta,
March 4. To Steno Ericson Lejonhufvud ; May 3. Register
for 1560.
i Letter to Eric, February 20, 1560, with one immediately
following. Register.
5 Letter to Catharine from Ulfve Sound, now Drottning-
holm, April 6, 1560.
6 He might be displeased indeed with those about Eric,
but he had nothing against him individually. Letter to
Eric, Strengness, June 3, 1560, in the Register.
1 " We send thee these letters, by which thou mayest
perceive what company our dear son Eric uses to spy out our
intents ; and as our afore-named son is by nature something
mistrustful, these toads he keeps about him do so spur him
on by their instigations, that he meddles rashly with matters
to which he has given no heed." He prays John to give him
good counsel. June 4, 15C0. This is the last letter of
Gustavus in the Register.
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